LIVE – Middle East: Lebanese president calls on Iran not to "to intervene" in his country

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Israeli army fire killed an infant and injured his parents in the south of the occupied West Bank, says the Palestinian Health Ministry. Sam Fahd Abou Haikal, aged seven months, was killed and his parents were lightly injured after Israeli forces “opened fire on them in the Tel Rumeida area, south of Hebron”, said the ministry in a short press release. Asked by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon left five people dead, including a woman and a rescuer. This shooting “on the town of Zebdine, in the district of Nabatiyé, killed five people, including a woman and a rescuer from the Risala association, and injured two people, including a rescuer”, indicates a press release from the ministry, deploring that “rescuers in operation are being targeted”.

A preliminary investigation for “torture” and “war crimes” was opened in Paris after the government reported on the way in which the French members of the Gaza Flotilla were treated by Israel.

The Lebanese president called on Iran to no longer “intervene” in his country, in an interview broadcast on CNN. “It’s not your country, it’s ours,” said Joseph Aoun to Iran, adding that Tehran “uses Lebanon as a means of pressure in its negotiations with the United States.” “Which is unacceptable.”

“Hezbollah must understand that there (is) no other solution than to sit down and talk, no other way to save what is left except through negotiation and diplomacy,” added Joseph Aoun. “It’s about the Lebanese people, not the people of Naïm Qassem,” he said, referring to the Hezbollah leader who rejected the ceasefire agreement.

The American government took new sanctions on Friday aimed at drying up Iran’s oil revenues. The United States is thus placing on its blacklist several people and organizations accused of having facilitated the transfer to South and East Asia of Iranian LPG “for a cumulative value of several hundred million dollars”, according to a press release from the State Department.

“This network used front companies in the United Arab Emirates and China, as well as the Iranian ghost fleet, to hide fuel of Iranian origin and circumvent American sanctions,” it is claimed.

The American army announced on Friday that it had boarded an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean which was the subject of sanctions from Washington for having transported Iranian crude oil. “During the night, American forces carried out a maritime interception and inspection with right of visit on board the sanctioned stateless vessel MT DAVINA, located in the Indian Ocean,” the American command for the Indo-Pacific (Indopacom) said in a message on X.

“We will continue to conduct global maritime control operations to disrupt illicit networks and intercept vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate,” the military added. The Davina was placed under sanctions in 2024 by the US Treasury Department, which accused it of having delivered Iranian oil to China.

European stock markets ended mostly in decline on Friday, after a stronger than expected employment report in May in the United States rekindled fears of a rate hike by the American Federal Reserve (Fed). Paris lost 0.32%, Frankfurt 0.75% and Milan 0.56%. London finished in balance (+0.07%).

The Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun, called on Iran to no longer “intervene” in his country, in an interview with the CNN channel broadcast on Friday, and told Hezbollah, supported by Tehran, that diplomacy was the only solution to the conflict with Israel. “It’s not your country, it’s ours (…) You don’t have to intervene in our country,” said the Lebanese leader to Iran. “Hezbollah must understand (that there is) no other solution than to sit down and talk, no other way (…) to save what is left, except through negotiation and diplomacy,” he added.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also urged Iran to stop using his country as “a means of pressure” in discussions with the United States to end the war in the Middle East. “We are the people of a homeland that refuses to serve as a mailbox for others’ messages or a battlefield for their wars.”

The American army denies having been targeted by Iranian missiles in the Sea of ​​Oman. “Iranian forces have NOT attacked or fired on US Navy warships. Such action would constitute a serious violation of the ceasefire,” US Central Command wrote on X.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday urged Iran to stop using his country as a “lever” in talks with the United States to end the war in the Middle East. “If I can address one word to Iran, it is this: have pity on our south, stop treating it (…) as a means of pressure aimed at improving the terms of your negotiations”, declared the leader during a press conference.

The Iranian army said it had fired “warning missiles” against two American ships in the Arabian Sea, after skirmishes in the Gulf this week which weakened the ceasefire in force with the United States since April 8. In a press release relayed by the government press agency Irna, it states that “the hostile destroyers DDG-103 and DDG-8 left the Sea of ​​Arabia to head towards the Indian Ocean (…) following firing of warning missiles”, on a date which is not specified. The decision was taken “as part of the continuation of operations aimed at combating the illicit actions (…) of the terrorist naval forces of the United States”, adds the Iranian army.

The head of Iranian diplomacy Abbas Araghchi ruled out any possibility of a meeting, suggested by Donald Trump, between the American president and Iranian supreme guide Mojtaba Khamenei, in a television interview broadcast on Thursday.

Donald Trump declared on Wednesday that he “would like to meet” Mojtaba Khamenei, in an interview with the New York Post website, at a time when talks between Tehran and Washington to put a lasting end to the war in the Middle East are stalling. “I saw an article in which he suggested that he (Donald Trump) was ready for a meeting or that he wanted to organize a meeting,” Abbas Araghchi said in an interview on the Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen, broadcast Thursday. “But I think we have to be realistic,” added Mr. Araghchi, ruling out this possibility.

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of pro-Iranian Hezbollah, raised for the first time the possibility that the movement would leave the south if Israel withdraws from Lebanon and a global truce is concluded. “I accept the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the south of the Litani in parallel with the withdrawal of Israel”, as well as a “global and unconditional” ceasefire, said in a press release Mr. Berri, who plays the role of intermediary with Hezbollah.

The Israeli army announced that it would target the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement in three locations in southern Lebanon and called on the population of these villages north of the Litani River to evacuate. The call to evacuate concerns the villages of Arqoun, Aarnaya, and Kfar Fila, about forty kilometers south of Beirut, according to the message published on social networks by Colonel Avichay Adraee, Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israeli army.

Israeli nighttime strikes on the city of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, killed seven people, a civil defense source told AFP on Friday. A strike near the Jabal Amel hospital left four dead and seven injured, slightly damaging the facility. Another attack killed three people and injured five others, including two children, according to this source.

Vladimir Putin judged Thursday that the attention of the United States had turned away from the war in Ukraine since the start of the conflict launched by Washington against Iran. “It is clear that the American administration is forced to shift its attention and deal with this issue before all others,” the Russian president told officials from international news agencies, including AFP, in St. Petersburg.

The Israeli army announced Thursday the death of one of its soldiers in southern Lebanon, its first loss since Wednesday’s announcement of a new ceasefire agreement. Captain Eitan Shmuel Lemberg, 21, “fell in combat,” the army said in a brief statement. According to a military source at AFP, he was killed by a missile fired by Hezbollah towards an Israeli tank.

Israeli strikes left eight dead and eight injured Thursday in eastern and southern Lebanon, the Health Ministry announced, the day after the announcement in Washington of a new ceasefire with Israel. Five people were killed in a strike in the east and three others near the southern city of Tyre, according to the ministry, which said three children and three women were among the injured.

“I don’t want to meet him. But if I met the new ayatollah, I would be honored. I would like to meet him if we find an agreement. If it has to happen, it will happen,” Donald Trump assured Thursday about a possible head-to-head meeting with the Iranian Supreme Guide. “I would say I’m not his favorite person, but having said that, he’s probably a professional in some circles, he’s got a pretty good reputation actually, you know. A lot of people say bad things about me too. But that’s totally untrue.”

Hello everyone. Welcome to TF1info to follow the latest news around the war in the Middle East. Negotiations between the United States and Iran to find a solution to this conflict are still struggling to succeed, while a new ceasefire agreement remains fragile in Lebanon.